


Misconstrued

by apathyinreverie



Series: McDanno Miscellaneous [2]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: And in love, Danny and Steve are trolls, Domestic Fluff, Family, Humor, M/M, Married Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28477515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apathyinreverie/pseuds/apathyinreverie
Summary: “How long have you two been married?” one of the HPD cops jokes not-entirely-goodnaturedly at one of their crime scenes.One year, five months, and seventeen days, Steve almost replies, the counter forever running in his head, but reminds himself that no one actually knows.-“So, when’s the wedding?” one perp grins nastily while cuffed to the chair in the interrogation room, clearly attempting to rile them.It’s called a civil union, you schmuck, Danny almost corrects, but catches himself just in time.-Or, just because everyone keeps making that same joke about them acting like an old married couple, doesn’t mean Danny and Steve didn’t get a clue quite some time ago. Not their fault everyone else is rather slow to catch on.
Relationships: Danny "Danno" Williams & Grace Williams, Steve McGarrett & Grace Williams, Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Series: McDanno Miscellaneous [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085882
Comments: 60
Kudos: 569





	Misconstrued

People are blind.

Rather ridiculously so.

It’s a fact Danny is of course perfectly aware of, his job as a detective reinforcing other people’s idiocy to him on a rather unnecessarily regular basis. Still, he thinks where his and Steve’s marriage is concerned, their team’s – and everyone else’s – continued ignorance really rather takes the cake.

You know, since Steve and Danny have been married for a while now and not a single person around them has caught on so far.

Sure, they hadn’t made a big deal out of it when they’d stopped by City Hall one morning to sign the forms, hadn’t even really mentioned it to anyone at all. If only due to the fact that them getting hitched hadn’t really been about being in love or even about being a couple at that point – you know, since they very much _hadn’t_ been, Danny still smarting from the divorce of his supposed-to-be-forever marriage and Steve being his usual abandonment issue-riddled self – but much more about the legal side of it, about ensuring that either of them would always have a say where the other is concerned, that they’d be first in line to make decisions, that they’d have a legal right to know, to get involved, to _be there_.

Just in case the other was ever out of commission to ensure as much.

They hadn’t even planned it as such. Not really. The entire thing more of a spur-of-the-moment idea, born from the desperation right after Wo Fat, right after Steve having been taken. For all that Danny had cheerfully moved mountains to get his partner back, until he’d lifted that plane of that truck, their eyes meeting, Steve beaten bloody and Danny desperate, there had been no way of knowing whether he’d ever see his partner alive again. For all that Steve had been utterly confident that someone was in fact coming for him, he’d also been fully aware that if Wo Fat decided to randomly put a bullet into his head right then and there, there would be nothing Steve could do about it and any rescue efforts would be too late.

Sure, it had all worked out in the end. Steve’s Navy buddies had come through for him and they’d found him and Danny got his partner back. A little banged-up maybe but still in one piece.

However.

It had simply been one thing too many, had happened too soon after Mattie popping into and right out of Danny’s life again, after Mary appearing and disappearing again, after the sarin gas and Steve being framed for murder and being sent to jail for another man’s plots, after both of them getting shot and kidnapped a couple of times and the other always being the one to show up for the rescue.

They’d known each other for about a year at that point, but somehow both their lives had already been perfectly, inextricably intertwined, unapologetically circling around each other’s existence in a way that Danny still rather liked to avoid thinking about back then.

The point is, it had been too many losses and upheavals, too many of the people they care about stepping into and out of their lives again without any regard or thought to Danny or Steve, too many close calls and far too many almost-didn’t-make-it clusterfucks in too short a time span. Always another few scars – physical or metaphorical ones – added to the mess they both already carried all on their own.

Never mind that neither of them quite knew what to make of the fact that they had started sharing scars by then, scars that in themselves affected them both, if only because either of them was forever determined to carry as much of the other’s burdens as they possibly could.

Yeah, Danny had preferred not thinking about that bit either.

The point is, Steve getting taken had been one time too many. For both of them.

That night after they finally made it back home, after Steve has been patched up and then ‘cleared’ – read: signed himself out very much against his doctors’ advice - at the hospital, after Danny refused to leave, citing the rather unconvincing excuse of not trusting Steve to properly take care of his own wounds, something in his chest clenching every time he sees the bruising on Steve’s face, if only because it so very effectively reminds him of all the wounds he knows are hiding underneath his partner’s clothes. Instead he’d simply stuck around, sprawled over the couch right next to his partner at Steve’s place, both of them exhausted, the sort of bone-deep exhaustion that had them quiet, barely a few words being exchanged, despite the many things they maybe really should discuss, but too done with everything to want to do anything but just _be_ for a few moments. Be beside each other.

Which was – admittedly, somewhat counter-intuitively – also the moment they decided to get hitched.

Hey, Danny never claimed the decision was particularly well thought-out, much less that it would make any sort of sense to anyone else aside from the two of them. Then again, not like that is anything new.

+++

Steve relaxes back on his couch, lets the ever-present calming sound of crashing waves in the background soothe the post-mission adrenaline in his veins, eyes barely open in slits in the twilight of the setting sun, lazily tracking the golden highlights being cast around his living room.

He is content. Right here, right now, everything is good.

He is back in his own home, Danny is relaxing beside him. It’s everything Steve needs right now.

Because, these days, having Danny sitting calmly right beside him, is the most reassuring thing in the world to him. If only because Danny being calm means that Gracie - and everyone on the team - is perfectly alright, no threats whatsoever looming over their heads or Danny would – as always – be ranting up a storm, a thin veneer of irritation to hide his worry and caring beneath.

Danny is calm. And all is right in Steve’s world.

Not that his partner being calm also means he’s going to be silent. To the contrary. At this point Steve is so used to Danny forever complaining about something or other that he’s somewhat come to rather detest silence. A silent Danny never means anything good.

“You know,” Danny huffs, a slight disgruntled scowl on his face. “I’m kind of sick of having to justify my presence anywhere by saying I’m your partner.”

Steve looks over at him. “Yeah?” The assertion is rather random. Then again, most of Danny’s various rants start out with a random comment like that.

“Yeah,” Danny scowls. “At the prison and the hospital and in front of your SEAL buddies. Like I’m only allowed to ask after you, and those limbs of yours that you don’t really seem to particularly care about, because we work together. Couldn’t possibly have any other reason.”

Steve feels his lips quirking up on one side even as he settles in to listen to yet another of Danny’s diatribes, at the center of which – like is so often the case with his rants and no matter how well hidden beneath his brash words – is his worry for those he cares about and Steve in particular. Never mind that Danny worrying about him, his health and his ‘limbs’ and his eating habits and whether he got enough sleep on any particular night, is one of Steve’s absolute favorite things in the world these days. He’s never had that before.

Danny rants on, despite the rather tired lilt to his voice, the way his words are dragging just the slightest bit from exhaustion. Steve just listens.

“And once they do know that I’m your partner, everyone either keeps making jokes about us being ‘ _partners_ ’,” - the inflection he uses on that last word is absolutely familiar to Steve after listening to so many people making that same joke about him and Danny being in a relationship - “Or they keep acting like the only reason I could possibly be there is out of obligation,” Danny huffs, frown darkening. “Like I couldn’t possibly _want_ to be there. Or be honestly worried. Or simply want to look after a friend.”

_Huh._ Steve blinks slowly. _He is bothered by others seeing us **only** as work partners…_

Steve hums, before adding a little fuel to the fire. Because sometimes he just can’t help himself, can’t help but stoke Danny’s temper, all the better to listen to him rant against the world, more often than not on Steve’s behalf. “If I get reactivated and something happens to me on a mission, they wouldn’t tell you anything, whether you’re my partner or not,” he gives a shrug, immediately having to hide the wince that movement causes. Damn, he hurts everywhere. Instead, he adds, “They might not even tell you whether I’m missing, dead, or simply on yet another mission. Whatever information they do share is for next of kin only.”

He can see the skin around Danny’s eyes tighten. And Steve hates that it’s his own brush with danger that put the current lines of exhaustion on Danny’s face, the way he slightly deflates.

“Yeah,” Danny finally sighs. Then, sardonically, “The one time you’d need someone to misunderstand the whole ‘partner’ thing is likely going to be the one time it doesn’t work.”

“Hm,” Steve hums in amused agreement. Danny is certainly right about that. The number of times that someone seriously or jokingly took their claim of being partners to mean that they are together is honestly ludicrous. Not to even mention all those jokes about them acting like an old married couple.

_Huh.._. Steve blinks, his mind doing one of those weird skip-stumble-sideways it sometimes does, mostly while he’s on a mission or while putting clues together while hunting criminals, having saved his life more than once. _Now there’s a thought_.

Danny is eyeing him. Like he can tell that there is something going through his mind, so Steve pauses for another second but then just finishes his thought, as insane as it might sound to everyone else.

“You know,” he starts carefully, not sure whether what he is about to say next might get him laughed at or punched in the face. Or – more than likely – it might simply send Danny off on yet another rant. “Unless it weren’t a misunderstanding.”

Danny blinks at him tiredly, clearly not firing on all cylinders for him to not be able to follow Steve’s train of thought as effortlessly as he usually does.

So, Steve sits up the slightest bit straighter. Or more like, he slightly straightens his sprawl across the couch, so as to better face Danny but doesn’t have the energy to right himself beyond that.

“Okay,” Steve says, thoughts gaining speed, whirling around a solution for a problem he’s been bothered by for a while but that really hit home while he’d been with Wo Fat, while he’d been stuck and unable to get out and the main thought in his head being how he might not get to see Danny or Gracie again and how he wouldn’t be able to look after them anymore and, honestly, _screw that_. “This might sound a little crazy, but hear me out.”

“Oh wow, a disclaimer,” Danny mocks amusedly, but his eyes gaining that attentive sharpness Steve is so very used to seeing whenever he is truly focused on something, trying to figure something out. “That’s ominous.”

Steve scowls, flaps his hand around to wave him off. He makes himself focus, suddenly convinced that this is the best idea he’s ever had and determined to convince Danny of that fact.

Then again, for all Danny’s complaining about his supposed insanity, Steve’s track record in dragging his partner along with his ideas – while Danny of course rants loudly and colorfully, but always right there beside him, following along – is pretty good.

_One-hundred percent success rate so far, actually_ , Steve grins to himself.

He is rather determined to keep that track record.

In hindsight, Danny really shouldn’t be surprised that Steve gets his way. As he always tends to do.

More than that. He not only manages to somehow convince Danny’s overtired brain that they should just get married, but also that they should get it over with the very next day.

It’s a decision made half in jest and half serious, partially born from their over-tired brains, desperation of both of them thinking they might not see the other again when Steve had been taken. Steve’s determination to make sure that Danny and Grace will be taken care of, that all that hazard pay in his bank accounts will have some use even if he himself might not be around any longer, the thought that if something – god forbid – were to happen to Danny, Steve would still be able to take care of Gracie, that the law would give him at least some sort of right to see her, to watch out for her…

Once it’s on the table, the decision is easily made. Because marriage solves all of that, gives them a claim, officially, _legally_.

Thus, in the beginning, them getting married really isn’t particularly romantic, actually isn’t about romance at all.

Sure, the potential between them has always been there, neither of them blind enough to miss that chemistry between them always humming there in the background. But they’d both slotted each other neatly into the category of partner so very soon after meeting and then refused to consider anything else. So, even after being legally an item, it admittedly still takes them a while to realize that there might be something more to their utter fear of losing the other, of not having an official claim, not having any right to speak up, to get involved.

Instead, things just… happen, moving smoothly, easily, naturally, develop into something else, something more without either of them doing anything at all to drive things in that particular direction.

Though, as always, Steve is the one who starts it.

“You might as well move in,” Steve says, the moment they walk out of city hall, marriage license with the ink barely dry in Danny’s pocket. A smirk. “You know, with us being married anyway. And it will get you out of that health hazard you live in.”

Of course Danny protests, but is – as always – quickly worn down by Steve, who one morning of a rare day off less than a week after they got hitched shows up at his apartment with a couple of cardboard boxes to pack Danny’s rather meager belongings into.

Gracie at least is delighted with her new room in Steve’s house, instantly lays claim to Steve’s beach as hers and then proceeds to wheedle Steve into decorating her new room perfectly to her specifications. Danny leaves them to it, claims it’s punishment by leaving Steve to deal with all the glitter and the many shades of pink, but he can’t help the way his chest warms at the sight of his monkey and his lunatic of a partner utterly covered in glitter as Gracie settles into the new home that is now just as much hers as it is Danny’s.

So, they’re married, even if nothing else really changes. Same for then moving in together.

Because Danny already spent the occasional night on Steve’s couch before all of this anyway and thus, even with him living there permanently now, nothing much about their daily routine changes.

They arrive at work together every morning, but they already used to carpool before anyway. They still bicker and argue and poke fun at each other as they always have, even if some of their arguments get significantly more domestic, suddenly about whose turn it is to cook or whether they need a new coffee machine.

Then again, even looking back Danny still doesn’t know how ‘moving into Steve’s house’ had somehow turned into ‘sleeping in Steve’s bed’.

Well, he kind of does.

There had been that one case, where they’d been chasing their perp-of-the-week through the less than great part of Honolulu, and Danny had gotten injured – nothing bad, just a dislocated shoulder from diving out of the way of a bullet, which had then only grazed his side instead of going straight into his heart. But afterwards Steve – eyes narrowed and worried and big hands gentle as he guided a somewhat-loopy-on-painkillers Danny into their house – refused to let him sleep anywhere except for in the only real bed in the house while Danny recovered.

Which had been a nice sentiment and his back had certainly been grateful for getting to sleep on a real mattress for once instead of on the pull-out couch in the guest bedroom. Even if said mattress also came with its very own overgrown Navy SEAL with apparent starfish-across-anything-within-reach-while-asleep tendencies.

Somehow it hadn’t really occurred to either of them that Steve could have taken the couch that Danny had slept on since moving in until Danny recovered. And afterwards Danny had kind of forgotten to move back.

So, they had somehow started sleeping in the same bed.

And then, there had been that one night, the two of them on the lanai, talking, utterly exhausted after closing a particularly hard case, Steve a little banged up from yet another of his I-fear-nothing super-SEAL rescue plans. And Danny recalls how everything had seemed a little fuzzy around the edges with how utterly focused he had been on Steve and then Danny leaning in, a soft brush of lips, and electricity running through the both of them. The sudden bright realization of what this thing between them is, what it could be.

And that had pretty much been it.

Things quickly turn even more domestic. Almost disgustingly so.

Thing is just, no one else seems to be picking up on the fact that they’re very much together.

At first, they hadn’t bothered to inform anyone about them being technically married because at that point it had been far more about ensuring that they’d always get a say and would be the first in line to make decisions and that Grace would always have someone to take care of her, that Steve could stop worrying about them being taken care of in case he himself wasn’t around anymore.

However, when that turned into them actually being together, they didn’t do anything whatsoever to keep said change in their relationship quiet. To the contrary.

Sure, they made no announcement, just continued on as usual. If only because, for all of his unapologetic Steve-ness, he is still a Navy man through and through, lived with DADT for years, and overt public displays of affection simply aren’t his thing. Not that they are Danny’s thing either.

But they still touch a lot, even in public. They lean into each other’s space, share a car, share a house, spend their every waking moment together. Steve’s arm around his shoulders is a familiar weight, Danny leaning into his side something Steve wouldn’t want to go without anymore.

All of which, the people around them pick up on. They notice.

But for all the jokes about them acting like an old married couple, no one ever seems to realize that they are just that. Married.

Like Danny said, people are blind.

* * *

The team does notice things, of course. They just never seem to put the facts together.

Sometimes it’s small things, like combined shopping lists.

“Hey, babe,” Danny calls on his way out of headquarters to pick up Gracie from school. “Remember to get some milk on your way back. We’re out.”

“Will do.” Steve hums back, where he is leaning over a map of one of the neighboring islands with Chin, trying to come up with the best grid search pattern of the search they’ll have to organize tomorrow.

Chin who is now staring at him pointedly. “ _We_ ’re out?” he asks humorously. “Have you consolidated your shopping lists these days?”

“It’s just easier if only one of us has to do the shopping,” Steve shrugs. “Also, I think it’s Danny’s way of making me pay for stuff.”

Chin stares at him, like he’s waiting for Steve to say something else, or to add something to that, or anything really. When nothing is forthcoming, Chin finally huffs an exasperated breath, shaking his head as he leaves Steve’s office.

Steve feels his lips quirk up in amusement the very second Chin’s back is turned.

* * *

Other times, it’s far more overt, like that one case where they have to do stakeout from a hotel.

They need to keep 24-hour surveillance on their suspect, a mobster from the mainland who they suspect is there to establish a new drug-trafficking route to their beautiful island. Something Five-0 takes definite exception to.

It took them forever to track down their perp and they are all already exhausted by the time they narrow it down to one specific hotel, agreeing to switch off in teams of two to guarantee the constant surveillance. They already know it’s likely going to be one of those exhaustingly long surveillance ops, so right from the get go, they take over a full suite at the hotel their perp is staying in, one room for surveillance, one for the other two to get some rest.

Danny and Steve take the first shift, an exhausting twelve hours of continued focus without anything at all happening. So, when Kono and Chin show up to take over, Steve and Danny are utterly relieved to get some rest, shuffling into the other room to get a couple hours of sleep before it’s their turn again.

So, Danny absolutely blames his exhaustion for not remembering to take their teammates’ presence into account regarding their sleeping arrangements.

Danny blinks awake.

It takes his brain a couple of seconds to come fully awake, to realize Kono standing next to the hotel bed clearly trying to wake them for their shift. Though, it’s the expression currently on her face that has Danny squinting up at her in question. It takes another couple of seconds until he realizes what it is that has her look so amusedly exasperated at the universe in general and her bosses in particular.

Once she sees that Danny is awake, she raises her eyebrows, pointedly glancing across their sleeping arrangement on the bed. You know, with Steve sprawled mostly across Danny’s back, as his Neanderthal of a husband always prefers to sleep. Starfishing all across Danny, like he feels the need to stake his claim even in sleep.

Danny is never going to admit out loud how much he likes that thought. 

Danny sighs, starts poking at Steve to get him to move, even as he grumbles at Kono. “I told you guys that I wasn’t sleeping on that lumpy couch,” he just asserts like that’s any sort of explanation. Although apparently, him just deciding to sleep in the same bed as Steve out of sheer stubbornness is believable enough that it has Kono rolling her eyes exasperatedly, likely adding yet another point in her tally of things-that-my-bosses-should-really-get-a-clue-about, as she turns on her heel to leave the room.

_Look who’s talking_ , Danny thinks, caught somewhere between amusement and exasperation.

* * *

Gracie is actually the only one who knows about them, who they actively told.

And she makes absolutely no secret of it either, having long since dropped the title of ‘uncle’ for Steve, instead talks about her ‘Steve and Danno’ like they are a single entity – which, to her, they likely are – and everyone just keeps taking her comments as yet another sign that the two of them should really get a clue soon.

Never mind that they already have.

* * *

Then there is the undercover op where Danny and Steve are ‘pretending’ to be a gay couple.

Kono tells them with that mischievous glint in her eyes that the only way they’ll convince anyone of being gay would be to make out.

So, that’s what Danny and Steve do. With enthusiasm. Beforehand to ‘practice’ and during the op itself.

Their ‘cover’ is perfect and they get their suspect easily, never mind that Danny’s lips are still red and puffy during the arrest, from making out ever since getting to the club. Danny doesn’t care and Steve looks smug as all hell all the way through.

The team seems even more exasperated than usual when Danny and Steve are back to normal the next day once the case is closed and the perp is behind bars. None of them seems to realize that ‘normal’ very much means ‘together’ for them.

* * *

The team isn’t the only one who makes not-so-creative comments, either.

“How long have you two been married?” one of the cops jokes not-entirely-goodnaturedly from the sidelines at a crime scene 5-0 just took over from the HPD.

_Eleven months and seventeen days_ , Steve almost replies, the counter forever running in his head.

Or a few days later once they have the perp-of-the-day from said crime scene in custody.

“So, when’s the wedding?” the guy grins nastily cuffed as he is, clearly trying to rile them.

_It’s called a civil union, you schmuck_ , Danny almost corrects but catches himself just in time, reminds himself that no one actually knows and that this might not be the best way to announce it either.

* * *

At some point, it becomes a bit of a game between Steve and him.

They make bets about when the team will finally catch on and Steve, cheater that he is, when the date he bet on - for the team finally realizing they are in fact married - is coming up, ups the ante by quite a bit.

By way of spending an entire day holding Danny’s hand.

Danny just laughs, by that point convinced that unless the team sees them having sex they are not going to realize. And even then, they might possibly just assume Danny and Steve are messing with them.

So, he only grins over at his husband, their fingers wound together, but not the least bit surprised when the team had only reacts to Steve’s antics by watching them in exasperation, shaking their heads, and murmuring about how Danny and Steve should really catch a clue.

Steve is still pouting about having lost that bet.

These days, they have a continuous bet going for when the team will finally catch on to the fact that their pointed comments are utterly wasted. You know, due to the fact that they already are very much together.

Although, by now, they just pick alternating months and leave it at that.

Still, oblivious colleagues or not, their life is pretty much perfect these days.

* * *

And then, Rachel announces she is going to take Grace with her to the mainland, and the floor drops out from underneath Danny.

“I’ll take her to court,” Danny rants from where he is pacing in the main room of headquarters, chest tight with something anxious and terrified. Because it’s Gracie, and he’d do literally everything for his monkey, would follow her to the ends of this earth. But there is also Steve. And how in the world is Danny going to survive if he has to choose between the two of them. He feels his hands curl into fists as he paces, at once again feeling so utterly powerless, subject to his ex-wife’s whims just because Rachel can’t see beyond whatever she herself wants at any given time. “Things are different now,” he asserts, hears the desperation in his own voice as he adds, “They _have_ to be.”

The entire team is gathered around, watching him worriedly, sympathetically.

“Danny,” Steve says soothingly, casually leaning back against table in the middle of the room, as always utterly calm whenever Danny loses his cool, the counterpoint to Danny’s emotions, his counterweight whenever he needs it.

But for all his projected calm, there is also that oh-so-familiar, uncompromising sharpness in Steve’s eyes that tells Danny his Navy SEAL, Neanderthal of a husband is sooner going to help him kidnap Grace and then hide them away in some safe house somewhere on the other side of the world, than let anyone take either of them away from Steve.

There is something so endlessly reassuring about that knowledge… Meeting Steve’s gaze, Danny feels like he can at least breathe again.

“She has nothing on you,” Steve then adds. “It’s not like last time where she could claim you are reckless and that you’d always put your job above Grace. The judge will see that you moved here for no other reason than to be with your daughter.”

The team is nodding.

“Yeah, man,” Chin adds decisively. “Everyone who has ever met you knows you’d put Gracie above everything else. We’ll all go in front of the courts to tell them just that if it really comes to that.”

“And worse comes to worst,” Kono adds grimly nonchalant. “We can always kidnap Gracie and hide out in Antarctica or something.”

Danny can’t help but snort slightly in amusement, especially when Steve instantly looks like a proud father at her comment about how best to produce mayhem.

Then, he sighs out. The team’s sentiment is nice and all, but the thing is, Danny also had an entire police department backing him during his divorce in Jersey and he still got taken for all he had and lost custody of his daughter to his far-more-connected wife. Anxiety curls through him once more.

“Danny,” Steve says again, calling his attention. “It’s not the same as last time. Rachel has no leg to stand on. Not even the claim about herself being the only one able to provide a stable two-parent home will fly this time around. She is the one trying to uproot Grace again, while you’re the one with the stable home.”

Danny glances at him, tries to calm himself down, uses Steve’s utter calm to settle himself.

The team is nodding, though there are frowns on a couple of faces. A few more seconds as they clearly puzzle through what Steve just said.

“Wait, what do you mean Rachel isn’t the only one who can provide ‘two-parent home’?” Chin finally asks, brow furrowed, confusion on his face but his eyes sharp on them.

Steve and Danny blink at Chin, then the entire team.

“Honestly, you guys,” Danny snorts, can’t help the amusement running through him despite the situation he has found himself in thanks to his ex-wife’s flighty my-way-or-the-high-way approach to ruining his life. Again. “How have you still not picked up on this?”

He is met with blank stares. And a widening grin on Steve’s face.

Danny huffs. “Seriously. Steve and I have been married for almost a year now. How do you keep missing that?”

A pause.

“You’re married?” Lou asks incredulously.

“Wait, are you messing with us?” Chin asks. “You’re messing with us, right?”

“We’re not messing with you,” Danny shakes his head in utter exasperation. “We got married -,” he glances at Steve.

“One year, two months, and twenty-three days,” he supplies promptly.

“- ago,” Danny finishes his sentence.

“You mean that chemistry between you?” Kono asks wide-eyed, but definite delight in her features.

“Is exactly that,” Danny nods. “Seriously, what sort of detectives are you? I moved in with Steve barely weeks later. My daughter has a room in his house. We carpool, every morning. We shop groceries together and argue whether we need a new coffee machine and whether to repaint the living room.”

The team just blinks at him.

Then.

“Aha!” Steve suddenly exclaims, grin broad. “I won!”

This time it’s Danny who pauses, confused for all of two seconds just what exactly Steve might be talking about. Then, he groans. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he grumbles.

“You won?” Kono asks carefully. Just as Lou asks, “Won what?”

“The bet when you’d finally figure it out,” Steve supplies grin widening.

“First of all, they didn’t figure it out,” Danny grumbles. “We told them.”

“Ah, but March was my month. So, I still won,” Steve looks like a kid in a candy store. 

Danny even knows why. Because that wager they put up, well… A slight shiver of heat runs down his spine. Yeah.

Going by the heat currently in Steve’s eyes, his husband’s thoughts are clearly running along similar lines as Danny’s right now. Well, tonight at least promises to be... _fun_. A lot of it. Even if Danny might not be able to walk entirely straight tomorrow.

Lou is watching them, calling them back to the discussion at hand. “ _Your_ month?”

Danny blinks, then shrugs. “We used to make actual bets. You know with having to pick a fixed date, guessing when you lot might figure it out. Well, back when we still thought you’d get a clue at some point.”

Steve grins. “By now we just take alternating months.”

“You know, since you lot are apparently far worse detectives than I ever thought,” Danny grumbles.

The team stares.

+++

In the end, Steve is right.

Well, Rachel doesn’t change her plan of leaving and taking Gracie with her, so Danny is forced to take her to court after all.

But, very much in contrast to the judge who’d made that call about giving sole custody to Rachel in New Jersey, this time the woman presiding over the proceedings is clearly of the opinion that if there is a destabilizing element in Gracie’s life then it’s Rachel with her continued wish to move in between states and very much not Danny.

And in a turnabout that he had in no way expected at all, Danny somehow ends up not only with shared custody of his daughter, but also with the judge heavily leaning in favor of Danny, giving him the last say in all of the more crucial decisions in Gracie’s life from now on.

After years of needing to beg to get to see his daughter, after a move halfway around the world to follow the person most important to him, after upheavals and never ever being the one calling the shots, suddenly Danny has everything he ever wanted.

He has Gracie and he has Steve. What more does he need.

If anything, their lives are utterly perfect, almost ridiculously so.

Well, Steve is of course still a reckless idiot who puts his life and limb in danger with truly unnecessary frequency. And, of course, Danny still frequently insists that he hates the pineapple infested hell-hole that is the entirety of Hawaii.

Then again, either of those are kind of a given at this point.

They just wouldn’t be them without it.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this got way out of hand. And I know the timeline doesn’t quite match up with canon but I’m just claiming creative license for twisting things a little in order to make this fit :D Although, this was just supposed to be this tiny snippet about Steve and Danny simply having gotten married at some point and being rather exasperated that no one ever seems to catch on and then proceeding to troll the entire island simply because they can. But then it just kept going and going and going… 
> 
> Would still love to know what you think :D
> 
> And happy New Year, everyone!


End file.
